SOS Children’s Village

Details

SOS Children’s Village

Chicago, IL , USA

SOS Children’s Village is looking to make the abandoned community center at Maxwell St. and Blue Island Ave. in Roosevelt Square home to their new community center. Its close proximity, large site and waffle slab structure give the existing building excellent design potential.

In order for this building to emulate the mission of SOS Children’s Village, the building needed a new skin that wel-comed its visitors. The proposed facade maintains and continues the existing concrete louvers, introducing glass for visibility and wood louvers for warmth.

In order to daylight all spaces including those in the basement, the center of the east portion of the existing building was carved out to create a three story atrium and new skylights at the roof were inserted. This allows light from the roof to access the basement, making it usable square footage. A monumental stair/auditorium connects from the basement to the second floor, making all of the programmatic spaces interconnected, visible and acces-sible to the public.

A new community space occupies the third floor addition, giving the prime real estate with views of the Chicago skyline back to the community.